


Go to Bed

by tigereyes45



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigereyes45/pseuds/tigereyes45
Summary: Gendry has a bad habit of collapsing wherever he sits right after work. Arya is a little fed up with it.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 5
Kudos: 94





	Go to Bed

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for noboopforyou for the secret santa event on tumblr.

Gendry buries his face as deep into his arm as he could. It felt like hours since he had been dragged in and sat at this wooden desk from the forge. After months it felt like he was finally getting used to the cold only to have exhaustion overwhelm him the moment he stepped away from the flames. Not even the fire in the extravagant fireplace provided enough heat to make Gendry rise again. His body had caved the moment his thighs had hit the chair.

“You planning to sleep there?”

“Just give it a minute and I will be.”

Gendry peels one eye open as the other is buried even deeper into his arm. He couldn’t see her until it was already too late. One arm wraps around his face, blinding him as it pulls his head up. The other dives under his side and begins to lift. Gendry laughs until a knee stabs his butt.

“Are you trying to choke me or just hurt me in usual?”

“No, I’m making you stand you lazy bull.”

“Why Arya? I want to sleep.”

“Becuase our bed is right there. It is five steps away.”

Gendry shoves his foot down and pushes back against her. The pulling stops. Arya lets go of him and he smiles as his body starts to fall back. Before he could melt back into the chair small hands as sharp as nails push into his back. Gendry lets out a small yelp and forces his body to stumble forward to get away. He scratches at his back as Arya smiles victoriously.

“Nails are unfair.”

“You hammer at nails every day in your forge. It’s only fair that they get to hit you back some times.”

Gendry rolls his eyes and lumbers over to the bed. Only for his pajamas to hit his chest before he could lay down. He doesn’t even bother to argue with her.

“I swear it’s like I have to remind you every night.”

“I’m sorry not all of us can walk around stark naked in the middle of winter.”

“No, but most of us can come up with a better joke.”

“Since when did your siblings get a sense of humor?” Gendry starts to slip as he changes his pants. Arya pushes him back onto his other leg.

“Don’t let Jon hear you say that. His sense of humor is one of the few things he has left.”

Gendry frowns and finishes dressing. “That’s sad.”

“His life has been sad.” Gendry shakes his head as Arya looks away. Her voice was so distant. She talks like she was speaking of ghosts who haunt the halls instead of her family. The longer they were at Winterfell the more melancholic she became. He looks at the comfortable bed. One-touch and his soul would be halfway to the realm of dreams. The featherbed was comfortable, but Arya was more important. Perhaps it was time for them to go.

“Hey,” He slips an arm over her shoulders.

“Hey.” She leans her head down against his chest. He was kind of hoping she would turn around and lay against it, but this would do.

“How about we take a trip?”

Arya snorts with so much force her hair feel down into her face. Gendry does his best to hold back the sudden urge to laugh. Nothing could keep the smile from his face.

“A trip where, and stop smiling like that. You look like a fox who just made off with a whole chicken.”

“I’m not smiling like anything, and I’m serious Arya. We haven’t been south in a while.”

“If we headed back down to the south you’ll be twice as miserable once we get back.”

He sighs and holds her closer. “Or we don’t have to come back. Not immediately at least. We could stay at the inn Hot pie is working at for a while. Visit your uncle in the Riverlands, maybe check on how he is managing your mother’s ancestral home. Nymeria’s pack went back after the war too. We could look for them as well.”

Arya moves to rest a hand over her eyes. She pulls it back with a sudden jerk. Her grey eyes narrow up at him. “Just how long are you suggesting this trip be?”

“As long as it needs to be.”

She pushes him away. “And what does it needs depend on?”

Gendry lets his arms hang limply at his sides. There would be no talking around the subject then. Fine, he’ll just go for it then. “Until you stop looking at your family like they’re already dead.”

“I don’t-”

“You do Arya. Not only was increasing security not enough, but you have taken it upon youself to watch the kitchen staff prepare your family’s portions of meals. You went out of your way to find new wolf pups just to bring them back and guard your sister’s sides. Sansa is not a child Arya. She doesn’t need all this extra protection from you. She has a kingdom to protect her!”

“It wasn’t much protection for our brothers when Theon took our home. It wasn’t enough to keep an assassin away from Bran when we were children!”

Gendry nods realizing he would not win that portion of the arguement. “You’re right Arya. It wasn’t but your sister has learned from their mistakes. Yet you can’t even talk about her, or Bran, or even Jon without sounding like they’re already dead. I think you need a break from here. Not just from your family, or Winterfell, but all of the north. From all of these ghosts.”

“I don’t talk about them like that. The only ghosts here are the ones you imagine.”

“Then explain to me why you can’t step for then a few feet into the library, or step into the maester’s office? Arya the only place I see you actually relax here is in the forge and that hot lake in the Weirwood. You walk as if there are eggshells everywhere else.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“I don’t I’m not imagining the way you look whenever you walk past the crypts.”

“Gendry,”

He wraps his arms back around her again. Burying his face into her shoulder this time he takes a deep breath in. She smells like the Weirwood, and ice, and death. Those last two haven’t left her since she killed the Night King. Strangely Gendry couldn’t imagine her not smelling like them anymore.

“They’ll survive a couple of months without you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sansa knows it.”

“Sansa thinks she knows everything.” Finally, she melts against him. There’s no heavy sigh, no audible omission, just a physical reaction that he knows means she’s giving in. Sometimes logic still reaches her ears. Before she could react he was lifting her up.

“Gendry!”

“Sorry I’m too tired to hear you.”

“I swear I will make you regret this!”

He lifts her up so that her hands and legs were in the air. She couldn’t grab onto anything that wasn’t him. So her fingers were knotted into his hair, and her legs kicked at the top of his like her life depended on it. None of that stopped him. He laughs as they fall back onto the bed. She continues to fight for her freedom as the blankets weave themselves around them.

“It’s hard to regret something when you’re so comfortable.” Gendry lays over on top of her.

“Gendry I’m serious.”

“You’re always serious Arya.”

Finally, she stops trying to push him off. Surrendering was never like Arya but she also knew when she couldn’t win. Between the blankets tied around her body and the blacksmith refusing to move an inch, she was done in. Her fingers stop tugging on his hair and just rest in his slowly returning black locks.

“You’re an ass.”

“Yeah but you’re the one who said I had to sleep in the bed.”

“In the bed not on me!”

“Well it’s too late for that Arya.”

He wraps his arms back around her as she takes part of the sheets and shoves them over his head. At least part of him will be warm tonight.


End file.
